Sonar Secures $2.4M to Address Teen Mental Health Crisis at Scale

Sonar获得240万美元融资，以大规模应对青少年心理健康危机

The company partners with school districts to fill crucial gaps in preventative mental health resources, measurably improving student well-being and decreasing absenteeism

公司与学区合作，填补预防性心理健康资源的关键空白，显著改善学生的幸福感并减少缺勤率。

SACRAMENTO, Calif., February 24, 2025-- Sonar Mental Health ('Sonar'), an AI-powered mental health platform helping young people thrive, today announces $2.4M in pre-seed funding led by Nina Capital, with participation from GSR Ventures and J4 Ventures and support from the Stanford University Social Impact Founder Fellowship.

加利福尼亚州萨克拉门托，2025年2月24日——Sonar心理健康（“Sonar”），一个帮助年轻人茁壮成长的AI驱动的心理健康平台，今天宣布获得由Nina Capital领投的240万美元预种子轮融资，GSR Ventures和J4 Ventures参与投资，并得到斯坦福大学社会影响创始人奖学金的支持。

Amid the worsening adolescent mental health crisis, Sonar will use this capital to accelerate its expansion across school districts nationwide, invest in R&D and app development, and continue building the most scalable, effective solution for preventative mental health support..

在青少年心理健康危机日益恶化的背景下，Sonar将利用这笔资金加速其在全国学区的扩展，投资于研发和应用程序开发，并继续构建最具可扩展性和最有效的预防性心理健康支持解决方案。

'Sonar isn't merely a project or a job for me; I see it as my personal mission to prevent another family or friend from experiencing the tragedy of losing a loved one to mental illness,' said Drew Barvir, co-founder and CEO at Sonar. 'Our team of experienced psychiatrists, counselors, researchers, and AI experts is unwavering in this shared passion for providing adolescents with the support they need to improve lifelong mental well-being while empowering under-resourced schools with proactive mental health solutions.

“声纳不仅仅是一个项目或一份工作，对我而言，它是一项个人使命，旨在防止其他家庭或朋友经历因精神疾病失去亲人的悲剧，”声纳联合创始人兼首席执行官德鲁·巴维尔表示。“我们这支由经验丰富的精神科医生、顾问、研究人员和人工智能专家组成的团队，始终充满热情，致力于为青少年提供他们所需的支持，以改善终身心理健康，同时为资源不足的学校提供积极的心理健康解决方案。”

This funding round allows us to continue making strides in supporting the next generation with the resources they need to become their healthiest, happiest, most engaged selves.'.

这轮融资使我们能够继续在支持下一代方面取得进展，为他们提供成为最健康、最快乐、最投入的自己所需的资源。

Sonar is powered by AI and trained in techniques like motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral therapy.

声纳由人工智能驱动，并训练了动机性访谈和认知行为疗法等技术。

The Mental Health Support System for Youth is Broken

青少年心理健康支持系统已经崩溃

• Gen Z & Gen Alpha face a mental health crisis: 49.5% of adolescents in the U.S. have a mental health disorder, with 20% of adolescents experiencing a major depressive episode each year.

• Z世代和Alpha世代面临心理健康危机：美国49.5%的青少年患有心理健康障碍，每年有20%的青少年经历重度抑郁发作。

• School districts lack resources to solve the problem: Despite the lifelong health risks associated with youth depression, anxiety, and behavioral disorders, data shows that 17% of high schools do not have a single school counselor, and 48 out of 50 states are above the recommended student-to-school counselor ratio of 250:1 — amounting to more than 600,000 students without this critical service..

• 学区缺乏解决这一问题的资源：尽管青少年抑郁、焦虑和行为障碍会带来终生的健康风险，但数据显示，17%的高中连一名学校辅导员都没有，50个州中有48个州的学生与学校辅导员比例高于建议的250:1——导致超过60万名学生无法获得这项关键服务。

• Existing solutions don't work for adolescents: Although ChatGPT wasn't designed to counsel teens in distress, 58% of students aged 12–18 have used ChatGPT for various purposes, including mental health support. Virtual counseling platforms remain difficult to scale and fail to provide students with on-demand care..

• 现有的解决方案不适用于青少年：尽管ChatGPT并非为辅导困境中的青少年而设计，但58%的12至18岁学生曾出于各种目的使用过ChatGPT，包括心理健康支持。虚拟咨询平台仍然难以扩展规模，并且无法为学生提供按需服务。

• Schools suffer as a result: Since 2018, the percentage of K-12 chronically absent students—defined as missing 18 days per year—nearly doubled nationally, from 15% to 28%. This underscores administrators struggling to manage their student bodies' mental health and educators struggling to keep students engaged.

• 学校因此受到影响：自2018年以来，全国范围内长期缺勤的K-12学生比例——定义为每年缺勤18天——几乎翻了一番，从15%增加到28%。这突显了管理者在管理学生心理健康方面的挣扎，以及教育者在保持学生参与度上的困难。

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The Sonar Way

声纳方式

Sonar's preventative mental health support platform is designed to engage young people in a way that ensures they use it—and feel better because they did. The company's AI-powered Wellbeing Companion, Sonny, engages with students directly through text messages when they need support. Through ongoing conversation, the on-demand companion learns and adapts to each student's unique needs, offering tailored, judgment-free responses that make them feel seen and heard, whether they're stressing about college applications, experiencing conflict with friends, or grieving a personal loss..

Sonar的预防性心理健康支持平台旨在以一种确保年轻人使用并因此感到更好的方式吸引他们。该公司的人工智能健康伴侣Sonny通过短信直接与学生互动，当他们需要支持时。通过持续的对话，这个随需应变的伴侣会学习并适应每个学生的独特需求，提供量身定制、无偏见的回应，让他们感到被关注和倾听，无论是为大学申请感到压力、与朋友发生冲突，还是因个人损失而悲伤。

The platform sets students up for long-term success beyond the K-12 experience while providing school districts with a cost-effective, scalable solution to boost student engagement and academic performance while reducing chronic absenteeism.

该平台为学生在K-12阶段之后的长期成功奠定基础，同时为学区提供了一种经济高效、可扩展的解决方案，以提升学生的参与度和学业成绩，并减少长期缺勤现象。

• Tech: Sonny is powered by AI and trained in techniques like motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral therapy. A board of psychiatrists provides clinical guidance to inform Sonny's algorithms and validate the accuracy of signs of distress flagged by Sonny.

• 技术：Sonny由人工智能驱动，并经过动机性访谈和认知行为疗法等技术的训练。一个精神病学专家委员会提供临床指导，以完善Sonny的算法并验证Sonny标记的痛苦迹象的准确性。

• Human in the loop: Today, trained supporters (aka Wellbeing Companions) are involved in each conversation to ensure conversations are valuable to students and that high-risk situations are handled appropriately. Furthermore, when a potential mental health crisis is detected, Sonar's peer counselors and psychiatrists can refer students to professional therapy, highlighting the platform's holistic, human-driven approach to flagging early warning signs of anxiety, depression, and other mental health disorders..

• 人在环路：如今，每次对话都有经过培训的支持人员（即健康伙伴）参与，以确保对话对学生有价值，并妥善处理高风险情况。此外，当检测到潜在的心理健康危机时，Sonar的同伴辅导员和精神科医生可以将学生转介给专业治疗，突显了该平台整体的、以人为驱动的方法来标记焦虑、抑郁和其他心理健康障碍的早期预警信号。

• Partnership: School districts leverage public funding from mental health and safety-focused grants to partner with Sonar.

合作关系：学区利用来自心理健康和安全专项拨款的公共资金与Sonar合作。

• Sign-up: Educators at partnered schools prompt students to sign up in the classroom, advising them to use Sonny as a resource in times of distress or when they need someone to talk to.

• 注册：合作学校的教育工作者在课堂上引导学生注册，建议他们在遇到困难或需要倾诉时将Sonny作为资源使用。

• Data sync: With student consent, Sonar's machine learning algorithms proactively identify potential mental health challenges based on social media data.

• 数据同步：在学生同意的情况下，Sonar的机器学习算法会根据社交媒体数据主动识别潜在的心理健康问题。

Momentum & Adoption

动力与采纳

• Sonar partners with nine school districts across California, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, and Arkansas, supporting more than 4,500 students.

• Sonar与加利福尼亚州、德克萨斯州、伊利诺伊州、密歇根州和阿肯色州的九个学区合作，支持超过4500名学生。

• Schools experience decreased rates of chronic absenteeism after adopting Sonar.

学校在采用Sonar后，长期缺勤率有所下降。

• 20-40%+ of students at Sonar district partners engage with Sonny

• Sonar地区合作伙伴中20-40%+的学生与Sonny互动

• More than 75% of students using Sonny demonstrate improved well-being, by more than 20% based on self-reported survey results. 80% of conversations with Sonny include new moments of self-disclosure.

• 超过75%使用Sonny的学生表现出幸福感提升，根据自我报告的调查结果，幸福感提升了20%以上。与Sonny的80%的对话包含新的自我披露时刻。

• 98% of school districts partnered with Sonar expect to continue to increase mental health spending.

• 与Sonar合作的98%的学区预计将继续增加心理健康支出。

'Nearly every school in the U.S. is under-resourced, with the mental health support system across school districts remaining completely disjointed,' said Marta-Gaia Zanchi, founder and Managing Partner at Nina Capital. 'Sonar is bringing something entirely new to the market, supporting students all over the country with desperately needed mental health resources and creating learning environments where students flourish, actively participate, and lay the foundation for successful futures.

“美国几乎每所学校资源都不足，学区的心理健康支持系统仍然完全脱节，” Nina Capital创始人兼管理合伙人玛塔-盖亚·赞奇表示。“Sonar正在为市场带来全新的东西，为全国各地的学生提供亟需的心理健康资源，并创造让学生茁壮成长、积极参与并为成功未来奠定基础的学习环境。

We're proud to be part of Sonar's journey as the company creates a model for mental health support in schools that actually works.'.

我们很自豪能成为Sonar旅程的一部分，因为这家公司正在创建一个在学校中真正有效的心理健康支持模式。

To learn more about Sonar Mental Health, visit https://www.sonarmentalhealth.com/

要了解有关Sonar心理健康服务的更多信息，请访问https://www.sonarmentalhealth.com/

ABOUT SONAR MENTAL HEALTH

关于声纳心理健康

Sonar Mental Health ('Sonar') is an AI-powered mental health platform helping young people thrive. In partnership with school districts across the nation, the company is addressing the adolescent mental health crisis to measurably improve student well-being and identify mental health challenges early.

Sonar心理健康平台（“Sonar”）是一个利用人工智能技术的心理健康平台，致力于帮助年轻人茁壮成长。通过与全国各学区的合作，该公司正在应对青少年心理健康危机，以显著改善学生的幸福感，并及早识别心理健康问题。

Sonar's AI-powered Wellbeing Companion, Sonny, engages with students directly through text messages whenever they need support. The platform sets students up for long-term success while providing school districts with a cost-effective, scalable solution to boost student engagement and academic performance while reducing chronic absenteeism..

Sonar的AI驱动健康伴侣Sonny通过短信直接与学生互动，随时为他们提供支持。该平台为学生的长期成功奠定基础，同时为学区提供了一种经济高效、可扩展的解决方案，以提升学生参与度和学业表现，并减少长期缺勤率。

Learn more at https://www.sonarmentalhealth.com/.

了解更多，请访问 https://www.sonarmentalhealth.com/。

Contact:

联系人：

MEDIA CONTACT:

媒体联系人：

Tess Pawlisch

特丝·波拉施

608-333-9788

608-333-9788

sonar@needlepr.com

sonar@needlepr.com